


Before, Between and Beyond

by AlwaysJohn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But is recovering, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, John is a Bit Not Good, Just love plain and simple, Light Angst, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, is there anything else?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysJohn/pseuds/AlwaysJohn
Summary: Unable to accompany Sherlock to Scotland, John stays behind with a Sherlock-shaped hollow in his heart.





	1. Setting His Thoughts Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> Not a WIP.

John adjusted his position in his chair by the fire, intent on a novel he’d wanted to read for a long while but never seemed to find the time. It lay open on his lap, but he’d read the same two paragraphs at least a half-dozen times in the last hour without retaining a single word.

Sighing, he let the pages flutter, losing his place on page..three. He closed the book, setting it on the small table beside his chair and turned back to stare into the dancing flames in the grate. 

Somewhere in Scotland, the other half of himself and his soul was on a case in Edinburgh that was now three days old, and John, left behind at the detective’s insistence because of a not quite vanquished pneumonia, fretted back in London. 

Long ago Sherlock had promised to never leave him behind again, but the case was a murder and at least a nine. John suspended the promise for this one time, and though he had second, third and fourth thoughts about leaving, Sherlock reluctantly let John push him out the door.

They’d spoken via Skype earlier in the day, before Sherlock left Edinburgh for the far-flung regions where wifi was sporadic at best, and sometimes non-existent. John heard the ‘I’m lonely without you by my side’ in his voice even though Sherlock struggled not to let it show. They were both eager for a successful resolution and reunion as soon as possible.

So. Here he was, alone, with a Sherlock-shaped hollow in his heart, staring into the fire and wishing he were in cold, dreary Scotland, at his consulting detective’s side. With a heavy sigh, John picked up the book one more time, opened it, read the same two paragraphs again with the same non-result. He tossed it carelessly toward Sherlock’s chair, where it landed on the floor with a thud.

He thought about brewing a strong cuppa, but in the end never left his chair, preferring instead to mindlessly stare into the fire. In time he grew sleepy, his eyes drifting shut several times. The snapping of the logs in the grate woke him once, twice, thrice, as Sherlock liked to say. He smiled, visualising Sherlock’s teasing grin. God how he missed the man, recalling, as he did constantly, if he were honest, how the fates had thought him worthy to be drawn into Sherlock’s universe. He ought to one day write a book about the man, John mused, setting his thoughts adrift.

“Before, Between and Beyond: My Life With the Only Consulting Detective in the World..”


	2. Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm.

Days were gray in the Before time; gray in every shade known, and probably a few unknown. Not surprisingly, it was the early hours, the ones just before dawn, that were darkest on the gray spectrum. They sometimes seemed lighter as the endless day wore on, but never was there full clarity, even on the sunlit days.

I had the nightmares, I had the thoughts in my head that my life as a surgeon was over, so what good was I to anyone? I had my military weapon, although technically I shouldn’t have had it because of my diagnosis of PTSD, but somehow it was still in my possession. And every morning when I sat up and put my feet on the cold floor of that miserable bedsit, I thought of another reason not to use it.

Thomas Fuller wrote that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” Truer words were never spoken, but by a man far more knowledgeable than I. As I think back on it now, I couldn’t have imagined during what was on the horizon for me. Up until that fateful meeting with Mike Stamford at Barts, nothing ever happened to me. 

In hindsight, which is always 20/20, it was the calm before the storm.

That storm was lanky, six feet, with a riot of dark curls and an intense gaze, who deduced everything about me in under a minute. I offered my phone for his use. To say I was intrigued was an understatement. Without a single doubt, and in less than a day I’d agreed to be his flatmate. 

And I may have loved him from the first moment our eyes met. Like two halves of a whole, neither of us knowing that something was missing, that there was something, out there that each of us had been searching for all our lives.

We rubbed along pretty well, the two of us. We had some ups and downs as Sherlock tried to navigate with me along, leaving me behind, calling me an idiot, but for some reason that was beyond my understanding, we grew together. I like to think that we were, and hopefully still are a formidable team. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. 

He turned my life upside down, and inside out, brought color to my lonely existence, trusted me. I didn’t know it then, but I loved him. 

And then he was gone.


	3. Between...part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

If I had known in the Before, what I discovered in the Between, everything that came after would have been, well, Sherlock said it much better than I ever could:

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

If I had remembered those words after his death, they might have given me solace and hope that it was, indeed, all a magic trick.

I grieved him not just as a flatmate, best friend, his only friend, but as a loved one lost. Of course, I didn’t realise it at the time. I cut myself off from everyone except Mrs. Hudson, but as time went on, I cut her out of my life as well.

But I couldn’t erase Sherlock Holmes from my heart. As much as I had denied being his date, that we were a couple according to The Woman, and, if anybody still cared, I wasn’t gay and “Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock was not my boyfriend,” he was never gone from me. He was part of me forever after.

But I did grieve, oh, how I grieved. I was catatonic and comatose all at the same time, if that were a possibility. I saw him on the street, around every corner, disappearing down an alley, watching me from the rooftops. I was never sure if it was real or an hallucination. Perhaps it was one and/or both or neither. I know the truth now, but, then, well I was so lost I went with all of the above because all I wanted was that miracle for Sherlock to don’t be dead.

I met Mary in the Between. She helped me learn to live again. It was hard, leaving Sherlock behind, but after two years, I had to move on or I would have taken my own life. 

The nights were still the worst. Although the dreams about the war subsided, dreams of Sherlock were there every time I closed my eyes. 

Eventually I went back to locum work and I let Mary into my life, but not into my life with Sherlock.


	4. Between...part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock returned to his life as though he had never been away.

Sherlock’s name was cleared and everyone finally knew that Moriarty was the criminal mastermind behind it all. It was a bittersweet victory because I still didn’t have my best friend.

When Sherlock returned from his ‘time away,’ staged his resurrection at the restaurant and shot a hole in my new life, I was angry. I hurt him. I hit him. I know now that he didn’t understand my anger then; even when I asked him how he could let me grieve like that for two years it never occurred to him that what he did nearly destroyed me. 

That night I dreamed of him jumping from the roof, over and over and over..

Sherlock returned to his life as though he had never been away. That was his nature then. That was how he had lived his life, and if I expected him to be any different, then I was sadly mistaken. It took a lot of time and almost being blown up beneath Big Ben before I forgave him.

He threw himself into planning our wedding. He did everything that a Best Man would do, and so much more, and was genuinely surprised when I told him he was my best friend. In some respects, he had become endearingly childlike.

After the reception to end all receptions, an almost murder, Vatican Cameos and an observation that Sherlock missed because he just wanted me to be happy, we were stunned by the news what we were to become parents. Then, when we lost our little one, Sherlock was there to console us in his own way.

Life moved on. Three had become four, then three once again when Sherlock regained the place of ‘the baby’ in our little family. We took care of each other. I loved Mary, and I loved Sherlock. 

That last one scared the shit out of me.


	5. Between...part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> History repeats itself, I guess.

There are a lot of parts of the Between that I cannot look at very closely. I just can’t. I prefer that they remain fuzzy, out of focus, distant.

So, here, in one paragraph is as much as I can bear..I loved Mary, but she nearly killed my best friend. Sherlock died in surgery, but somehow, he came back from the dead a second time. I forgave Mary for that. I forgave her for being an assassin. I was angry, but I forgave her. History repeats itself, I guess.

There were so many things that I could relate about the Between, but this book would be longer than Moby Dick and War and Peace combined. They’ll just have to live on in the blog.

I won’t even mention the serial killer who very nearly made Sherlock his victim. Or how Sherlock almost killed himself to “save John Watson.” Or how I lost Mary and blamed Sherlock for breaking his vow to protect us. 

And the East Wind? It came for us all.

But Sherlock and I survived.

The two of us.


	6. Beyond...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...beyond everything that drove me closer and closer to my breaking point, there was and is only one constant.

When I think about where I started, how alone I was, and where I am today, how Sherlock changed my life for the better and gave me purpose again, it gives me pause and a new perspective. 

Like I said at the start, if I had known; I don’t know if I could go through it all again, and I can’t say that all the pain, anger and hurt, my own and everyone else’s was worth it. Certainly the loss of life was not.

I don’t know for certain what my life would be like now if Mary and the baby had survived. I see it sometimes, in my mind’s eye, when I feel strong enough to briefly consider it. Maybe it would have been all right, I don’t know. I will never know. It was gone before I knew it.

In this Beyond time, beyond Moriarty, Magnussen, Smith. Beyond Mary and the baby, beyond everything that drove me closer and closer to my breaking point, there was and is only one constant.

Sherlock. Everything he’s done, questionable or not, beyond my understanding, or not, he’s done to protect me. Even when his methods were skewed, he did what he thought was the best thing to do. He cared more than I ever gave him credit for, and he only ever wanted me to be happy. 

Sometimes I shake my head at everything that’s happened and how we managed to get to this point.

I don’t dream about Afghanistan anymore, haven’t for a long time, nor do I ever dream about the bad guys and the things we had to do to end them.

I do dream about Sherlock being dead and I relive every second of the fall. When I awake with panic in my throat, Sherlock is near to guide me back. 

When I dream of Mary and the baby, what might have been, and I wake up crying for what I’ve lost, Sherlock is always beside me. 

I remember telling Sherlock that I wasn’t okay, that I was never going to be okay. He didn’t try to change my mind. I know in his genius mind he was searching for some way to help me not feel that way, because that’s who he is, to me, and for me. He wants me to be okay. He hopes that I will be happy again one day.

I was almost happy with Mary after Sherlock died, but there was always someone missing. I think I survived everything that came after so that I could be here with Sherlock now. I’ve also learned that you can love more than one person in a lifetime. 

All the things I think about when I’m sleeping are like dreams that lean over my shoulder and whisper in my ear. They are reminders of times past, so many traumatic times past. 

Sherlock was right about a lot of things. The most important one is that you can’t help who you love. I’ve loved him from the first moment and will until my last breath and beyond.

And on some bright, sunny mornings, I get a glimpse of happy. And it always wears Sherlock’s face.


	7. And now...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiny epilogue.

“John.”

“I love you, Sherlock.”

“John, wake up.”

“I love you. Always have and always will.”

“John?”

Drifting in that warm place between sleep and awake, John wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. Someone was whispering his name as he broke the surface of his slumber.

“John.”

“Sherlock?”

“Yes, John.”

Sherlock was on his knees in front of him, forearms resting on his thighs, the dying firelight reflecting on his tired face. 

“You're home.”

“Yes.”

John leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s neck. 

“You came back.”

Sherlock wiped at his tears, kissing him gently and circling his arms around him.

“I’ll always come back for you.”

“Just like a dream leaning over my shoulder and whispering in my ear?” John murmured against Sherlock’s warm neck.

Sherlock's eyes crinkled and his lips tilted into John's favorite smile. “Yes, John, just like that.”

“I love you.”

“I’m so very happy that you do.”

“Me, too.”


End file.
